The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories by Christopher Bunn Read Free Book Online

don’t always go well. That’s just part of the whole boyfriend-girlfriend setup. Take it from me, if you haven’t tested the waters yet with your particular spoonful of sugar. But there had been something odd about this conversation. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it. Her lack of enthusiasm? Her choice of words? Her vocal tone, oddly reminiscent of a flesh-eating zombie? No. None of those made any sense. I put the matter from my mind as I hurried through the city streets. Lobster stew with sea bass dumplings! Now that was something to think about.
    The moon was rising past the horizon of rooftops and utility wires by the time I got to Maura’s apartment. The door was unlocked. It was quiet and dark inside. It didn’t smell like lobster stew.
    “Hello?” I said. “It’s me.”
    “It’s me,” echoed a voice. Maura was standing in the kitchen doorway. She had some kind of new amazing hairdo.
    “You look great, babe,” I said. “Fantastic hair. Did you get a permanent?” I sat down in the easy chair and put my feet up. “How about getting me a beer? When’s the lobster stew going to be ready? I’m hungry.”
    “Hungry,” she echoed again.
    I heard her walk up behind me. There was an odd sort of shambling quality to her footsteps. Maybe she was tired. Then I could feel her fingers in my hair, poking and prodding. It felt good. Real good.
    “Ahh,” I said, starting to get drowsy. “That feels good.”
    She dug in a bit harder. I could feel her leaning over and sniffing at my hair.
    “I switched to a new shampoo,” I said sleepily. “Deepro’s Dandruff Dandelion. Smells nice, doesn’t it?”
    Maura mumbled something. She bit my scalp gently.
    “That feels great, babe. But not now. Maybe after the lobster stew.”
    She wandered away and I closed my eyes. Dimly, I could hear her rummaging around in the kitchen. Cutlery rattled on the counter. Good. I was getting real hungry. I was also getting a slight pain in my right hip. Maybe that was due to the fact that I was sitting on Maura’s purse. I pulled it out. I'm gentleman enough to not go through a lady's things, so I put it on the lamp stand next to the chair. But before I did that, I did a quick look-see through it to find my missing four hundred bucks. I found about a hundred and fifty bucks, which is a bit surprising, as I’ve known Maura to blow through money like a hammerhead shark swimming through a school of tuna. I also found a receipt for a permanent at Style By Flavia. Seventy-nine bucks.
    Seventy-nine bucks!
    Well, I had to admit that her new hairstyle was pretty smoking hot. I turned around to tell her that—women like compliments—and that’s when I noticed her careening toward me with a knife and fork. She had kind of a glazed look in her eye and she seemed to be drooling. Another man might not have noticed anything wrong, particularly a married man. But I’m a detective and I’m trained to notice the little details.
    “Hey!” I said. “You should never run with knives. Or forks, for that matter. You could hurt yourself.”
    The fork stabbed down into the upholstery, about an inch from my head. I was afraid she was going to hurt someone with that knife, so I wrestled her into the closet and locked the door. She thumped about and hollered in there, but I’ve learned over the years that you have to be firm with women. They respect that in a man. The closet door shuddered. Something that looked like fork tines rammed through the wood.
    I grabbed the Style By Flavia receipt and left. That place was really starting to bug me. I found a cab idling by the curb and jumped in. The cabbie looked a bit surprised. I told him to burn rubber for the Grove Street precinct. He was a little scrawny guy with a scraggly beard and a floppy hat. He seemed confused about the column shift, but he got the hang of it after I yelled some encouraging curse words at him. We tore through town, hitting green light after green light. Even though it was